


negotiating with demons

by indications



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indications/pseuds/indications
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>i read that fighting monsters can turn you into one</i>
  <br/>
  <i>your tactics start to look like things your enemies have done</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The heterosexual fix-it fic no one asked for. God knows this will only be canon compliant for another couple weeks but let me dream, ok.  
> Unexplained timeskip to immediately post-quincy war whatever the fuck this is. It's the future. Go with it

They have breakfast in silence. Kira can still eat, even if he no longer sleeps. Momo tries not to think about what that implies about his internal organs. She finds herself thinking about it anyway, as they eat fish and rice and tea and he doesn’t speak, and his reiatsu is a cold weight pulling on her, almost seeming to distort gravity. She thinks of his blue eyes flat and expressionless as he told her she was morbid for wanting to be around him. Maybe she is. She entertains morbid thoughts spitefully, feeling sorry for herself, until she finishes her food and Kira pours her more tea and she looks up at him, and his eyes are just the same. Flat and lifeless. She sits up on her knees and leans across the table and blows a puff of air in his face. His hair flutters back a little. He looks faintly surprised.

            “Testing my reflexes?” he asks drily. She smiles. It’s not as much of an effort as it should be. Maybe she’s getting numb to terrible things.

            “You forget to blink,” she says lightly. “I was reminding you.” She sits back for a moment. “It’s getting late. I should let you start your day.”

            “You have your own duties to attend to,” he says.

            “Yeah. Thanks for breakfast.”

            “Of course.”

            He lets her get up and see herself out. He doesn’t invite her to come again, or wish her a good day. He’s stubborn. But so is she.

 

 

Something like pain shows in Kira’s expression when he sees her at the door a second time. For a moment. Maybe she imagines it. Maybe…

            “Evening,” he says, and stands aside in lieu of inviting her in.

            She squares he shoulders and steps inside. “You’re not busy, are you?”

            “You know that I’m not.”

            The whole room feels heavy and dark as a grave.

            “It’s late,” he says. “What could you want with me at this hour?”

            “Rude,” she says softly, to herself. She’s not sure if he hears it. Probably he does. “You know what I want with you at this hour,” she says. “Let me sleep here again.”

            “No.”

            Well, at least she showed him she was serious. At least-

            When she turns to look at Kira, he looks shaken. Guilty.

            “I won’t bother you,” Momo says. “You can stay up and work all night if you want to. I won’t be in the way.”

            “Why?”

            “I couldn’t sleep.”

            “Why me?”

            “I missed sleeping at your place,” she says. It’s still true. She misses the too-few nights they had together, in the two years before Juha Bach. In the two years after. Aizen. When Kira pursued her with his broken heart in his hands and she did not forgive, him, anyone, herself most of all she did not forgive – until she did, until she had to, until she was sleeping through the night with her face against his chest thinking, maybe I can heal, maybe I can still heal. She misses his thin lips pressing kisses to her collarbone and the feeling, new and comfortable both at once, of trusting him again, of forgiving herself, of letting go of the dream of saving things inside herself for just the right person. For that person she’d admired, who in the end wasn’t worthy of her anyway. Kira told her that. ‘They didn’t deserve us. We are too good for them. They lost and we won and we are worth protecting.’ He didn’t believe it except when he said it to her. He never forgave himself but he’d have died defending her. He did. He died defending the Court, so he died defending them all. She misses sleeping with him. She misses his soft touches and the rare unguarded smiles she coaxed out of him.

            He lets her think all of this in silence. He does not invite her to make herself comfortable. So she waits, hoping he will speak, and he looks at her flat and cold and doesn’t say a word.

            Finally, though, he sighs, sits back down at his desk. Facing away from her. She shrugs off his rudeness and seats herself on the tatami in the middle of the floor.

            When he still doesn't speak, she lays back and looks at the ceiling. The light is enough for him to work by but not so much that she can’t close her eyes comfortably. Kira shuffles papers at his desk, grinds ink, draws brush over paper in a cool impassive hush. Hinamori knows well the neat, looping curls of his handwriting. The brush is stiff enough that it rasps softly, just enough to hear if she focuses all her attention on it.

            She can’t help but think of the last time she did this, the night before they found the gory illusion of Aizen’s body in the courtyard. The blood had even smelled right. Just clotted. Fresh enough to shine in the weak blue morning light. The smell of it came all at once as the winds changed. That awful morning. But she’d had no idea it would come, sitting in Aizen’s office, listening to his brush on paper. She’s sure he wrote his last letter to her that very night. The sounds of the brush forming words that would change her life. Surely they’re in her memory somewhere. But she didn’t know about it then.

            She wakes before dawn, cramped and cold. She sits up, looks at Kira. Kira doesn’t look at her. His shoulders are tense and his spine is straight. He doesn’t glance up from whatever he’s reading or writing as she rises, pulls open one cabinet and then another. He doesn’t ask what she’s looking for. She finds his blanket and wraps herself in it but doesn’t take out the futon. Kira stays sitting, rigid, his brush not moving. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t need to. She lays back down, out of the way, not too close to him. He doesn’t move. He seems on the verge of speaking. She doesn’t know how long she waits. He seems just on the verge of speaking.

            She wakes a little after dawn, stiff inside her blanket cocoon. When she opens her eyes, Kira’s looking at her. He glances away quickly, then seems to think better of it and looks her in the eye again. She waits. He says nothing.

            “Good morning,” she says.

            He seems on the verge of speaking. She’s surprised when he finally does.

            “You should go.” His expression is flat and his voice is even. His left hand sits limp on the low desk. His right arm, that awful black thing, is tensed up tightly. He doesn’t seem aware of it.

            “All right,” she says. Still, she rises slowly. “Did you get a lot done last night?”

            And she sees, then, a stack of paper with curled edges, as if they’d been crumpled and then smoothed back down. He has ink on his left hand. She can’t tell if it’s on the right. He looks exhausted. But he always looks like that.

            “No,” he says. “I didn’t.” Half a second’s hesitation shows in the furrow of his brow. She can almost hear him spit the word ‘coward’. “You disturbed me,” he says. “Please go now.”

            “All right,” she says. Still she rises slowly. She folds the blanket and puts it away. He doesn’t get up. Almost comically, in the silence, the brush snaps in his right hand. She looks away. “Thank you for letting me stay,” she says.

            He watches her go. He doesn’t say goodbye. As she closes the door, she hears what she knows is the stack of papers from his desk being thrown into the wastebin.

            She thinks about what she would say about him, if they had a funeral. She remembers the way he’d blushed when saw his hair newly cut for the first time in years. How he’d smiled as she brushed it out of his eyes, kissed her palm shyly. He was never kind to himself, but he’d been kind to her.

           

 

The third night, he won’t stand aside in the doorway.

            “Please don’t,” he says. It is almost a whisper.

            “You’re my friend,” she says. He shakes his head in silence. “You’re my friend. I won’t leave.”

            “Please,” he says.

            “Let me in.”

            He wavers. She looks him in the eye. He looks faintly scared, disgusted maybe, as though she’s grown twelve feet tall. As though she’s here to hurt him, take from him, betray him. As though this is a betrayal. She wavers.

            He stands aside in the door.

            She goes straight for the cabinet with his bedding this time, and he doesn’t pretend to be working. He pulls the futon out as she’s wrapping herself in the blanket. He spreads it out silently, gestures for her to lie down. She does. After a moment, he lays down beside her, still fully clothed, shrugging off her wordless offer to share the blanket. He looks at the ceiling and not at her. He doesn’t breathe.

            “Thank you,” she says.

            He doesn’t say anything.

 

 

“Stop harassing Kira,” Toshirou says, stealing a pickle from her bowl before Momo can stop him. “When he mopes, Matsumoto mopes.”

            “I’m not harassing him,” Momo says. She tries to steal a bit of egg off his plate, but he’s too quick and she gets poked in the hand with the back of his chopsticks. “He’s my friend and I’ve been visiting him.”

            “When Matsumoto mopes,” he goes on, as if he hadn’t heard her, “she drinks.”

            “Does she not usually drink?”

            “Not like this she doesn’t,” Toshirou says darkly. He’s been trying for months and months to grow his hair out, but so far the paintbrush nub on the back of his head is all he has to show for it. He tucks loose strands behind his ears irritably, a new and worsening tic.

            “I’ll have a word with Matsumoto, then,” Momo says.

            Toshirou steals another pickle.

 

“Kira won’t drink with me anymore,” Rangiku says. She doesn’t slur when she’s drunk – not in private, anyway. She slumps over when she’s not jumping-from-her-seat rambunctious, but she only slurs for show, mostly around men or when she’s putting on airs to seem less capable. It’s just the two of them. Rangiku leans her head on Momo’s shoulder. Momo holds her hand.

            “Why not?”

            “Says he doesn’t get drunk.” She scoffs. “Bullshit he doesn’t. Just doesn’t want to see anyone.”

            “I know,” Momo says. She doesn’t drink, usually, but with Rangiku she will sometimes. She’s sad and she knows drinking will make her sadder, but Kira’s frightened her. She doesn’t want to hurt so much that she refuses to feel. She’s tipsy and sad but she’d rather cry than be unable to cry. She’d rather embrace it than turn from it completely.

            “Do you think,” Matsumoto says, “we should stop trying?”

            “No,” Momo says immediately, though she’s not sure. She’s not sure at all anymore.

            Rangiku holds her, and she feels warm for the first time in ages. Sad but warm. She kisses her cheek, is rewarded in a tighter embrace.

            Rangiku’s nails are long and neatly filed and Momo can feel the edges of them through her clothes when Rangiku squeezes her tightly.

            She stays the night. Rangiku’s touch is soft and slow and sad. But she’s warm. She doesn’t brush Momo’s hands away and she stays with her all night, holding her and being held, and the moon shines outside, high above, even if neither of them can see it.

            The next morning is Sunday. Momo wakes well before Rangiku does, but she stays in bed, hoping they’ll have time for breakfast together.

            Rangiku makes time for breakfast when she wakes at last, and they have toast and jam and eggs and rice, all in Rangiku’s rooms as she lazes about, stirring soy sauce into the eggs with her top open and her hair a mess, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. Momo sips instant coffee (“Sorryyy, I haven’t been to the store in a while!”) and lets herself be unguarded, knowing Rangiku won’t say anything either way.

            They don’t talk about Kira. Momo sticks around through Rangiku’s morning routine, can’t help but be jealous of the ease with which beauty comes to her. She powders her face and glosses her lips with no more effort than she slips on her hakama (it’s early afternoon by the time she’s wearing pants). She brushes Momo’s hair and braids it into a twist at the back of her head. Momo luxuriates in the soft, petting touches and the smell of Rangiku’s perfume.

            “You have such pretty hair,” she says, as she pins it in place. “I think silver would look better on you, but you’d better keep those anyway. My hair isn’t long enough for them anymore.” She holds up a mirror and Momo can just see the gold and enamel hairpins sticking artfully up behind her head.

            “They’re lovely,” she says. “Thank you.”

            “You’re lovely,” Rangiku says fondly. “Come and stay with me again soon, okay?”

            “Okay,” Momo says. “I will.”

 

The prosthetic that Captain Kurotsuchi made is shaped exactly like Kira’s right arm, down to the veins in the back of his hand. It’s smooth and noiseless and Momo’s seen it bend impossibly, nauseatingly, though if it ever causes Kira pain he doesn’t show it. At a glance it seems to be his own arm, dipped in a matte black ink that refuses the light. But it has its own presence, a malicious strength. She hates it. It doesn’t tremble when the rest of him does, and he holds it across his body like a shield, palm out, warding her away.

            “Go,” he says. “I’m tired of this.”

            “Let me stay for one hour. I won’t sleep over.”

            “No. No. I don’t want you here.”

            “At least-”

            “Go!” His voice cracks. “You’re not welcome.”

            She holds her ground a minute longer. With the black hand so close before her, she sees that it has fingerprints, but the creases at the knuckles and palm are either too shallow or too black to make out. Experimentally, she steps forward. Kira steps back. As though she’s fire. As though she’s poison.

            “I’ll come another day,” she says.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the absurdity, Suffering, and social awkwardness continues in this thrilling second installment of The Heterosexual Fix-It Fic No One Asked For. 
> 
> Momo caters Kira's funeral.

 

He tries to shut the door in her face. He looks surprised when she stops it with her foot, like she’s quicker or bolder than he was expecting.

            “I don’t want to see you,” he says. “Go away.”

            “You’re being rude,” she says.

            “You’re the one being rude. I’ve said I don’t want to see you. Go.”

            “We’re friends,” Momo says, although she’s not sure how true it is anymore.

            “You were friends with Kira Izuru,” he says coldly. “He’s dead. I am only a humble corpse. You have no business with me.”

            “I’ll always have business with you. Let me in.”

            “For what purpose?”

            “To talk. Let’s just talk. You can convince me,” she says, “why you’re not worth seeing and I should leave you alone. You can be as mean as you want. Just sit and talk to me.”

            He stays impassive, his hand on the door as if he means to slam it at any moment, whether she’s standing in the way or not.

            “Ten minutes,” she says.

            “If I let you in, you must promise not to come back.”

            “I’ll leave you alone for a week.”

            “Forever.”

            “Ten minutes isn’t even long enough for a eulogy,” Momo says.

            Kira looks taken aback. Momo’s surprised, herself. But she presses her advantage. She can get to him if she speaks his language.

            “Three nights. I’ll leave you alone forever if you let me stay with you for three nights.”

            “I won’t-”

            “You never had a wake.” She’s morbid, is she? He’s a corpse and she’s morbid. Fine. “I’ll stay with you for three nights. If you’re the corpse of my dead friend then that’s normal. We’ll have a wake and then I’ll leave you alone forever.”

            He looks at her with his mouth half-open, as though seeing her for the first time. It takes him forever to speak. “Fine,” he says. “Come tomorrow night. I’ll buy incense and candles. Do you want to bury me afterward? I’m sure a plot could be arranged.”

            “If we bury you I have to invite everyone,” she says. She tries to keep the anger and the laughter out of her voice. He’s mean and gloomy and melodramatic. How can he say he’s not her Kira? “There’ll be speeches and military honors. We’ll all have to dress up. I’m sure Captain-Commander Kyoraku will want to give you a posthumous medal. Do you want me to be strict about the dress code? How are we gonna get catering on such short notice?” Her voice reaches a hysterical pitch. She clenches her jaw, blinks angry tears from her eyes. Kira says nothing. He doesn’t even laugh. So she can’t either.

            “Forget it,” she says finally, knowing he won’t even speak to her unless she forces him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Fine,” he says, and slams the door shut.

 

 

She debates all day whether to bring food or not. She’s glad that she does, because when she knocks on Kira’s door at last, she smells incense. He really went through with it on his end.

            “Come in,” he says, and goes in ahead of her without waiting. He has his badge on, but otherwise he’s dressed normally. She considered changing her own clothes, but everything she thought of seemed too grotesque, costume parodies. She’s worn her uniform to every funeral for every other fallen comrade. But she has Rangiku's gold pins in her hair.

            She will not show weakness. She is not weak. She has weathered horrors more profane than the sight of Kira turning to her in the dim room, a sneer twisting the corner of his mouth as he asks if she brought flowers.

            “No,” she says, as cold as she can manage. A handful of white candles and a low lamp are the only light. There’s no portrait of him, but his desk is cleared and when she places the food offering on it, the macabre stage is set. She faces him. “I knew if I brought flowers you’d just throw them out.”

            He gives a careless ‘guilty-as-charged’ shrug. She stares him down.

            “Let’s begin,” she says. The little sneer doesn’t leave his face. He bows shallowly, almost ironically, and they both sit in the middle of the floor. He lies down after a moment, head to the North, and folds his hands over his chest.

            “Please,” he says.

            She chants the sutra she brought. He smirks silently, viciously, waiting for her to crack.

            How that smile reminds her of Captain Ichimaru.

            How the Izuru she’d known would weep to see her now.

            She offers incense. Her hands shake. She’s not sure if he sees. She can’t bear to look at him anymore.

            She chats the sutra she brought. Her voice quavers but she doesn’t stop.

            She offers incense. She can feel the barbed hook of his sneer pulling at her gaze. She keeps her eyes on the sutra. If she looks away, it will break.

            She offers incense. She’s sick from the adrenaline, the frantic pounding of her heart.

            She finishes the sutra. She forces herself to look at him.

            His mouth is pursed in a tight grimace. His eyes are open, but he’s not looking at her.

            How pretty his eyes are. How empty the blue.

            She gathers her strength. She stands.

            “See you tomorrow,” she says, and leaves without a backward glance.

 

 

He doesn’t answer the door. She lets herself in, undeterred. She expected this, somehow. Kira’s lying absurdly in the middle of the floor, white flowers arranged around his head. He doesn’t react when she walks in. His eyes are closed. He doesn’t breathe.

            She kneels beside him. She reads the eulogy she wrote, wondering how she will convince him to open the door to her after tomorrow. There is none of yesterday’s aggression in Kira’s face, none of yesterday’s anxiety in Momo’s heart. She wrote the eulogy yesterday and then tried not to think about it, tried to remind herself that she’d faced much worse. Today the words are foreign, bland. Her heart is tired.

            “That’s a lie.”

            It takes her a moment even to stop speaking. “Killed in action,” she’d said, “defending his subordinates.”

            “Kira Izuru failed to protect his subordinates or any of the other squad members in the area,” he says. “They were all slain. Every one.”

            “He-” she starts, and almost chokes. “You were cut down protecting them. You-”

            “They were all slain,” he repeats. “Every one.”

            She opens her mouth and cannot speak. When her voice comes out, it says, “They’d have forgiven-”

            “They do not forgive,” he interrupts. He keeps his eyes closed. “I can feel them, at times. They curse my name. So should you.”

            “Are you Kira Izuru or not?” she demands, the sudden shrillness of her voice almost scaring her. How the pain comes in waves. How it springs to the surface without warning.

            “Mostly not,” he replies, sounding unconcerned, almost bored. As if it’s a chore for him to open his eyes and watch her composure break. “You know that already. Don’t tell me no one told you?”

            “Told me what,” she says, bile in her throat already, so afraid of him, so disgusted. So ashamed of herself, of her welling tears, letting him lead her to fouler and fouler places. Letting him do this to her, to both of them.

            “It’s not that I was in a convenient state to be revived,” Kira says, letting her picture it, letting her remember. Letting her see the gaping impossible hole straight through him, monstrously exposed, the parasitic black machine that replaced his arm all on display. “Captain Kurotsuchi simply decided that we’d lost too many high-ranking fighters. So he tried an experiment.”

            “I know,” she whispers. The smell of her own sweat makes the nausea worse. It’s hot. It’s cold. “I know all this.” ‘Don’t tell me,’ she doesn’t say. ‘Don’t do this.’

            “And you know that less than one percent of my reiatsu is my own. The rest is composed of the scattered remnants of the officers who were killed around me. My officers. My men. There was nothing for their families to bury.” He looks at her, finally. There is no pity in his gaze. “Kira Izuru died a failure, unable to protect even a single soul. I am made of the leftovers Captain Kurotsuchi mashed together into a war machine. I was revived to destroy Quincies. I have no other purpose.”

            She hadn’t known. She hadn’t wanted to know. Whatever her purpose in coming here, she had never wished to know that. She tries to speak. She tries to imagine the man she knew, carved down to a sliver. ‘I am made of the leftovers.’ Kira looks at her and she looks away.

            “You’re wasting your time,” he says, when it’s clear she can offer no response. “Go home. Find someone else to give you sympathy for your nightmares. I have nothing to offer you.”

            “Shut up,” she says. Her face is wet. She is crying, surely, but then it cannot be tears running down the back of her neck. She’d promised him, once – they’d promised each other – that she’d never let someone be cruel to her again. Not out of love or loyalty. She would not cower before cruelty, would not accept it, would not. Would not. “Shut up,” she says again, and this time she almost sounds angry.

            “If it would be easier for you to mourn a silent corpse,” he says, wrinkling his nose at her outburst. “Please just avoid lying about me in your eulogy. They say slander disturbs the dead.”

            Her hand moves on its own. The sudden displacement of air makes the candles gutter. Her palm stings. His cheek doesn’t flush. Kira lies still, his head to the side, as if she hadn’t just slapped him, as if he’d happened to turn his face toward her.

            A sob escapes her. She grits her teeth, but it’s too late. Another follows, and she cannot see a way forward, cannot see a light. Another sob and another, wretched sounds, like a little girl. She clenches her stupid eulogy to her chest, trying and failing to breathe deeply. Kira lets her cry. He doesn’t even do her the dignity of looking away.

            “You’re being cruel,” she sobs. “You were never cruel.”

            “I was,” he says. “I am.”

            “Why are you doing this? To teach me a lesson?” She scrubs her sleeve over her face, scouring it dry. More tears come. These, too, she wipes away harshly. “Do you think that if you’re mean, I’ll learn better and leave you be? Do you think you’ll save me pain this way?”

            “I’m not trying to be kind,” he says. “This is what I am now. I have no heart-”

            “Shut up!” It comes out almost a scream. He doesn’t flinch. “Stop it, Izuru, if you don’t feel anything then why-” and even her anger cannot stop her interrupting herself in hiccups and sobs- “why try so hard to be cruel? You bought- you bought incense just to put on this awful little game of pretend. I thought- I thought if I-”

            “If you sunk to my level, you could find me in the darkness?” His face is twisted, as if he is trying to smile. “Take my hand? Lead me into the light?”

            “Fine,” she says. The dark room is blurry. Her knees threaten to buckle. She rises anyway. She makes it to the door. “Tomorrow,” she says. Kira says nothing. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

 

            The door is locked. Momo knocks, and then she calls him. He’s not hiding his reiatsu. It would be impossible anyway, she thinks, like hiding a dead body. The sickening reek of it gives him away. He can’t be standing more than a few feet away. But he refuses to answer her.

            She breathes, slow and steadying. She gives the door another hard pull, feeling for where the lock is.

            “I’m coming in,” she says, and takes a solid stance.

            A kidou barrier shoots up before she can put her hands on the door. She stands dumbstruck. A long moment passes.

            Before this week, she’d have hardly imagined such a scene could happen in reality. His barrier shimmers faintly, a weak casting. Sloppy. Especially for him.

            She calls his name again. “You’re being childish,” she says. “I can’t believe this, Kira. I really can’t believe it.”

            Nothing. Anyone in the building might be wondering why a mid-level bakudou has suddenly gone up around Lieutenant Kira’s personal quarters. With all that’s happened, she would be surprised if they don’t have company soon.

            Fine.

            “I’m coming in,” she says, and takes a solid stance.

            The barrier tears too easily, and the force of her ripping it open splinters the doorframe. It’s all so absurd. She half-expects to trigger an Ambush Flare as she wrenches the door open. She hears someone shout from down the hall. Maybe Kira will make her duel him next. Maybe that would bring this sick awful spiral to a close. Tobiume glows under her touch, a promise. She’s hated Wabisuke since that day.

            Kira cowers in the ruined doorway.

            She steps toward him.

            “Don’t,” he croaks. “Stop this, Momo. Please.”

            She steps toward him.

            He flinches away.

            “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was cruel. Please don’t.”

            She steps over the threshold. He makes a sound like a sob. No tears come to his eyes. She wonders dimly if Captain Kurotsuchi took that from him, too. Unnecessary.

            “Get out,” Kira says. Still he retreats, hands up between them, warding her away. He stumbles back. Makes crying sounds. But her heart cannot break further.

            “Get out!” he shouts, and swings at her, too short to connect. A sad flail of a swipe. She is done flinching from him. She casts her broken heart aside.

            “I won’t,” she says. “You know that I won’t.”

            There’s nowhere for him to go. He is cornered. Is this what she wanted?

            “Lieutenant,” someone calls. “Lieutenant, is everything all right?”

            She doesn’t turn. He doesn’t look away from her. One of his squad members. More than one. An audience.

            “Go,” she says. Her voice is a stranger’s, imperious. A villain’s. “All of you.”

            “Lieutenant Hinamori-?”

            “Now,” she snaps. They retreat. Kira is gasping shallowly, staring at her with wide eyes. He doesn’t seem to care how he appears in front of his subordinates.

            Pathetic. That’s all she can think. She hates herself for thinking it. Pitiful.

            She takes one more step.

            He throws his hand up at the last second, before she can close the distance. That loathsome black hand. She steps right into it and he pushes at her weakly, gasping at her to get away, that he really means it, that she must get back from him now or else. Or else.

            “You’re stronger than me,” she says. “We both know who’d win if we fought for real, Kira.” His hand is on her throat, on her face, pushing at her and slipping to the side, scrabbling weakly. As if to touch her drains all its strength. He seems too afraid to even touch her with his own skin.

            “I’m sorry,” he gasps. “Hinamori, I’m sorry.”

            “I am, too,” she says. She is just as bad, isn’t she? She’s just as cruel as he is. She stares at him, finally broken for her, finally cracked. She’s been hurting him. She knew she was hurting him and she did it anyway. “I’m sorry, too,” she says. He falls back, all the strength gone out of him. Kira barely breaks his fall, keeping the black arm between them as if she may still press him further.

            “I’m sorry,” she says. He looks up at her, silent, his face contorted in pain but his cheeks dry. It must be that he really cannot cry. The moment swims before her eyes, absurd and sickening. She cannot even kneel and embrace him.

            “I’m sorry,” she says, and she backs away from him. Away. Leaves him to his broken door and his trembling.

            When she turns the corner, his fifth seat and a group of low-ranked officers are crowded in the hall. She sees several hands on sword hilts but no one stops her.

            She meets no one’s eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

            Rose gives Kira a moment to compose himself. As expected, Kira has already sent off the officers who’d gathered at the commotion by the time Rose arrives to find him pulling pieces of splintered wood from the doorframe. He doesn’t stop what he’s doing when Rose approaches, but he bows a little, a small nod as he wordlessly sorts through the debris.

            “Not a bad shape,” Rose says, toeing a larger section aside. The paper is ripped elegantly in several panes, but most of the wooden frame is intact. It’s not art, exactly, but in different circumstances it could have been.

            “I suppose,” Kira says. He runs a finger along the track in the top of the frame, down the side, pulls a few splinters out at the bottom. Satisfied, he straightens, exhales, looks at the floor. There are bits of wood and paper strewn about everywhere. “I’ll need a broom,” he says, and promptly strides off to find one without excusing himself. Rose follows at arm’s length.

            “You could have someone clean up for you.”

            “You know I prefer to clean up myself.”

            “Old habits,” Rose sighs. Kira doesn’t correct him, though Rose knows he rarely got sanitation duty even when he was in the Fourth. He decides to quit beating around the bush. “Do you want to file a report?”

            “We had a disagreement.” Kira stops at a janitor’s closet. He doesn’t look at Rose. “It escalated. That’s all.”

            “Do you want me to speak to her?”

            Kira turns to face him. He looks Rose in the eye seriously. “I don’t want anyone to speak to her. We had a disagreement. Nothing more.”

            “If you say so.”

            “Captain.” Kira’s lovely blue eyes are flinty and bright. He holds himself just so, his shoulders back and his spine straight and his fine features set in determination. He is arrestingly beautiful in each ordinary moment. “I’d appreciate it if no report was filed. I understand the irregularity of the situation and I take full responsibility. I accept-”

            “It was a private matter,” Rose says. “That much is clear. I can’t fault you for letting your passion get the better of you in the moment.”

            “Thank you, sir,” Kira says, subdued.

            “Whatever you and Lieutenant Hinamori… disagreed about is your own business,” Rose adds. “I won’t pry. But of course, if you ever wanted to talk to someone…”

            “Of course,” Kira says. He holds the broom in both hands, across his body from shoulder to hip. Rose knows when to leave well enough alone.

 

 

When Matsumoto mopes, she drinks. Not that she doesn’t drink usually. But when she’s moping she drinks in earnest, and she pulls other people in with her. Other lieutenants, usually. When Toushirou finds her, she’s in full force, clutching Lieutenant Hisagi to her chest and lolling over on Lieutenant Abarai simultaneously. She prefers male company when she’s moping, Toushirou notes, as he strides over to intercept his lieutenant before she smothers Hisagi to death.

            “Matsumoto!”

            “Oh nooo,” she groans, releasing Hisagi to collapse completely into Abarai’s lap. Hisagi comes up for a gasp of air but quickly slumps back again, almost knocking his head on the table. As usual, she’s roped those two in, as well. “It’s the fun police, everyone, quick-” She waves her hand vaguely. Abarai peers around at him with an expression of looking into a bright light.

            “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

            “Who else would it be,” Matsumoto slurs. “Who else would come and ruin our fun.”

            “You left work early for _this_?” Toushirou demands.

            “Nooo,” she says, finally peeking up at him over Abarai’s shoulder. “I was – I was working onnnn…” She frowns.

            “‘Investigating a matter of utmost delicacy and importance’,” Toushirou says, holding up the note she’d left on his desk halfway through the day. “I can see you’ve made progress in your investigation. How lucky that you didn’t waste your time on work.”

            “I _was_ busy,” she whines. “I really was busy. Doing things. Important things.”

            “Such as?”

            “Yeah,” Abarai pipes up unexpectedly. “Where were you all day? You coulda started drinking, what, eleven?”

            “Noon,” Hisagi mumbles. He looks pleased with himself. “Drinking before noon’s a sin.”

            “I’m sure Captain Kuchiki and Cap-”

            “Day off!” Abarai yells, cutting him off. “They gave us the day off. I swear to god, sir, you can ask ‘em yourself-”

            “My idea,” Hisagi says, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “Good behavior-”

            “’Cause my captain runs his shit like a prison ship-”

            “I got them to agree, forms, everything-” Hisagi begins ticking something off on his fingers but loses his balance before he can get beyond two. He slides to the floor bonelessly. Abarai stares blankly at him. Then, from the floor, “Wait, a _ship?_ ”

            “Thank you, lieutenants, that will be all,” Toushirou says, apparently to himself. The two stooges go on arguing (“Why’s it a prison _ship_?” “’S the first thing I thought of.” “You an’ Cap’n Kuchiki, out at sea-” “’Cause he always-” “In _prison_ , at _sea_ -”). Matsumoto tries to take advantage of the chaos by egging on one and then the other, finally joining Hisagi on the floor as if she can hide behind their antics.

            What is clear is that as usual, it’s _his_ lieutenant that’s delinquent, even in the company of the drunk-since-noon hooligan duo; she was not, in fact, investigating anything except possibly the contents of several bottles; she _wasn’t even with these two_ while she did whatever she skipped work for today.

            Toushirou clears his throat. Predictably, he is ignored. At last, he tries another shout of his lieutenant’s name; she ducks and claps her hands over her ears. Like _he’s_ being the noisy one-

            “Okay, okayyy,” she whines, “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry, Captain, but look, it’s done, the day’s over, I messed up – I’ll do everything tomorrow. All of yesterday’s work-”

            “You’ve been behind all week,” he snaps.

            “If you’d just give me a proper weekend to relax-”

            “You’ll be coming in this weekend, too!” Hisagi and Abarai have dissolved into roughhousing on the floor like children. Matsumoto lounges barely out of harm’s way, unconcerned, batting her lashes at him pleadingly. “If you finished your work properly you could have spent all afternoon with _these two_ -” Miraculously, one or both of them recognizes his tone and the tussling dies down.

            “Unbelievable as it is that both Captains Kuchiki and Muguruma approved ‘time off for good behavior,’ _I_ would be _more than happy_ to find a way to encourage good behavior and keep track of you. You weren’t investigating some important incident and you weren’t drinking with these two. Where were you today, Matsumoto.”

            “Yeahh,” Abarai says. “Wait, yeah. Where even were you, we looked for you-”

            “Aww, you missed me?” she squeals, jumping on the opportunity to change the subject. “Oh, Renji, I didn’t realize you _cared_ -” She squeezes him in one of her patented face-to-breasts embraces.

            “Matsumoto.”

            She tries to ignore him for a moment, but without anywhere left to hide, she gives in before long. “Nothing,” she says, releasing Abarai. He collapses into her lap, apparently breathless, but Toushirou catches him giving Hisagi a thumbs-up behind her back. Disgraceful.

            “I was doing _nothing_ , Captain, I was just laying around-”

            “You weren’t in your quarters. You weren’t in the office. No one had seen you.”

            “I was hiding from you, obviously!”

            “Like you were just now?” He stares her down. She flops back on the floor. Abarai seems perfectly contented to lounge like a dog, but Hisagi is beginning to show sense even in his inebriated state and is sitting up, blearily eyeing the situation around him as though trying to weigh the risks of further impropriety. “I found you just fine once you came out to drink.”

            “Yeahh,” Abarai drawls, somewhat muffled as he’s currently facedown and making no move to turn over. “Yeah, you’ve only been here, what, a half hour?”

            Typical. She probably isn’t nearly as drunk as she’s acting; she probably intended to drink away some serious trouble unnoticed, acting boisterous as a distraction.

            “Fine,” she snaps. Her slur is suddenly gone. “I was hanging out with someone. I was just playing hooky, Captain, can’t you leave it be?”

            “With whom. Were you ‘hanging out.’”

            “Hinamori.”

            She holds his gaze boldly, her eyes clear and focused.

            “Fine,” he hears himself say. “Good.”

            He turns.

            “I’ll expect you in early tomorrow,” he says.

 

 

“What was that all about?” Shuuhei asks.

            Matsumoto shrugs. “Captain always lets me off easy when I mention Hinamori,” she sighs. “He acts so uptight, but he’s secretly a big softie.”

            “How’d you get Hinamori to play hooky with you?” Renji asks. “She never skives off with _me_.”

            “Long week,” she says. “Long week for _everybody,_ hey!” She swipes a bottle from the table and raises it merrily. “But who cares! He let me off!”

            “Hinamori never takes time off work,” Shuuhei mumbles. “What’d you guys do?”

            Matsumoto takes several large gulps straight from the bottle and smacks her lips. “Ahh. Just what I needed. Renji?”

            “Yeah.” He accepts the bottle, wipes the lip in his palm. Momo. Something’s been going on with her lately. She’s quieter than usual, for one thing. “Hey, you can tell us. We’re too drunk to remember anyway,” he adds, pretty truthfully as far as he can tell.

            “Ohhh, you two!” She slaps Renji hard on the back. “Let a girl have her secrets!”

            “’Kay,” Shuuhei says. “Less play twenny questions.”

            “Kayyy,” Matsumoto says. “You first. Ooh. Let’s get back to the table.”

            “Floor’s comfy,” Renji protests.

            “Booze at the table,” Matsumoto says. She snags the bottle back from Renji, gulps down the last of it, and then peers into the bottom like she’s amazed it’s gone.

            “Jeez. We gotta catch up to her,” Shuuhei says. “Renji. She’s gonna outdrink us.”

            “She’s barely catching up,” Renji reminds him. “We’re way ahead. Way way ahead.”

            “I’m ahead,” Matsumoto drawls, already halfway up to the table. “I’m the one ahead for sure.”

            They spend all night playing catch-up. Renji doesn’t black out. He’s too old for that shit and he’s got work in the morning. Even the thought of Captain Kuchiki’s disapproving glare is plenty to keep him from overdoing it. But he drinks his share, plus a little extra ‘cause Matsumoto’s in a mood.

            He doesn’t figure he’s gonna hear about what’s on her mind. Women have their own ways about that shit.

            They drink and they bullshit and it gets late at night. Shuuhei’s laughing, clowning for Matsumoto, half lying across the table, and he says, “Too bad Kira never comes out with us anymore, he’d be half-naked by now-”

            “’S barely midnight,” Renji laughs, “He’d have his pants on, at least-”

            “Fuck him!” Matsumoto slams her drink down on the table. It gets Shuuhei in the face. He sputters, rolls on his side.

            “What the hell,” Renji says.

            “Fuck him,” Matsumoto says again. She pours herself another drink, ignoring Shuuhei’s complaints. She’s blinking a lot.

            “Uh,” Renji says. “Anything you wanna-”

            “I have nothing to say about Kira Izuru!” she says shrilly. She knocks back her drink and pours another.

            “Him an’ Momo,” Shuuhei says suddenly, sitting up in the middle of the table. “That’s what you did today. Somethin’ happened.”

            “Obviously,” she mutters.

            “What?”

            “You men are so dense!” she bursts out, standing up straight and sudden like she’s sober. “I can’t take this anymore, I swear-”

            “Wait, no, just- Matsumoto, seriously,” Shuuhei says, waving his hands at her as she leaves. “Matsumoto, just- Fuck.” He turns to Renji in confusion. “What’s her deal?”

            “I dunno,” Renji says. “Must be pissed you guessed it.”

            “Sounds like she’s pissed we didn’t guess sooner.”

            “Kira an’ Momo, huh?” Renji tries to think if he’s heard anything about them lately. Come to think of it, he hasn’t spent much time with Momo lately and Kira’s, well, _Kira_. Renji’s known him since he was an enlisted brat. Some people when they say ‘leave me alone’ mean ‘help me out’, but Kira really means ‘stay the fuck out of my business’. Renji’d been respecting that. Maybe he was wrong to.

            “Huh,” he says.

            “Wonder what the deal is,” Shuuhei says.

            “Yeah.”

            Shuuhei stares off the way Matsumoto left. “Think we should go after her?”

            “She’d probably yell at us.”

            “Women,” Shuuhei says, and that’s that for the night.

            They drink, they bullshit, they both have captains to impress in the morning. Shuuhei’s looking like he’s been at it since daybreak when Renji sees him the next day. Renji’d overslept, but not much more than usual. Captain Kuchiki’d groused about it, but not much more than usual. He forgets last night till the lieutenants’ meeting, when Shuuhei catches his eye and then stares pointedly at Matsumoto.

            She’s not doing anything weird, as far as Renji can tell, but it jogs his memory and he spends the rest of the meeting tuning out Captain-Commander Kyoraku, watching her and Hinamori and Kira, trying to figure out the vibe. Kira’s staring moodily at a fixed point, knee-level-ish between Iba and Isane who are standing across from him. Pretty typical. Momo’s doing kinda similar, just listening to the briefing, but once Renji really looks, she does seem down in the dumps about something. Matsumoto’s wearing lipstick, which she doesn’t always do but doesn’t _never_ do, and she looks over at Kira every so often, but Renji can’t read her face.

            He doesn’t get it.

            “So what’s their deal,” he asks Shuuhei, the second the meeting’s over and the three of them are out of earshot. “Who’s fucking who? Are they fighting?”

            “Kira and Momo fought,” Shuuhei says. “I poked around a little bit-”

            “Nosy!”

            “You wanna know, too, right?”

            “Yeah, but damn. You gonna put it in the paper?”

            “My days of yellow journalism are behind me,” Shuuhei says, in a way that makes Renji kinda want to punch him.

            “Whatever. What’d you hear?”

            “Apparently it was this huge thing.” Shuuhei drops his voice. “They were using kidou and shit. In the barracks.”

            “They fuckin’ weren’t. You can bet your ass we wouldn’t have seen them in the lieutenants’ meeting if they’d actually-”

            “Captain Otoribashi said something to the Captain-Commander to get it off the record.”

            “How the fuck do you know this?”

            “Old sources,” Shuuhei says, like he always does, and Renji elbows him reflexively. Shuuhei takes it ‘cause he knows he deserves it.

            “You mean from when you were dirtbagging around for leads for your stupid paper.”

            “Yeah, yeah, why don’t you try and read the atmosphere between those three and _you_ tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

            “They weren’t using Kidou. We’d have felt it.”

            “You wouldn’t have felt _shit_ , your senses are so off-”

            “Well what the hell were they fighting for?”

            “Beats me.” Shuuhei shrugs. “Maybe the girls wanted a threeway and Kira wouldn’t go for it.”

            Renji snorts. “Yeah fuckin’ right.”

            “Maybe Hinamori wants to tie the knot.”

            “You’re a filthy fuckin’ gossip, man.”

            “So _you_ come up with one.”

            “Maybe Kira can’t get it up now that he’s dead.”

            “Sick!” Shuuhei laughs. “Okay, okay, ‘Third Division Coverup of Necrophilia Scandal-’”

            Renji socks him. Shuuhei just laughs harder.

            “Seriously, it was just some stupid lovers’ squabble,” Renji says. “Just let it go, man.”

            “You can’t stop the press,” Shuuhei says, “I have a reputation to uphold- ow, fuck!” He rubs his arm where Renji’s punched him twice now. “I’m kidding, damn. It’s their business if they wanna duke it out. I just thought it was weird. _Those_ two having it out.”

            “Yeah,” Renji says, considering. “Yeah, shit, you’re not wrong. It’s weird.”

            “But whatever. You’re not wrong, either. They get weird around each other. ‘S their business.” Shuuhei sobers up. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

            “For what?”

            “Sharing the gossip. Plus you punched me.”

            “I’ll buy the first round tonight.”

            “Make it two,” Shuuhei says.

            That should be that.

            They go their separate ways. Renji tries to focus on work. It’s slow lately, peacetime shit. He could set more time aside to train than he does already. But even sweating it out with Zabimaru doesn’t clear his head. He keeps going over their faces in his head. All three of them closed and tense and unhappy.

            Used to be he’d try to stay out of other peoples’ shit. But that hasn’t worked out for them so far. Maybe if they’d actually paid attention to each other before Aizen and all that shit went down, they’d have seen it coming. If their eyes had been open before Juha Bach, they’d have noticed something in the shadows.

            Kira and Momo fighting. And now Matsumoto in the middle of it somehow. Kira and Momo apparently having a kidou duel right under everyone’s noses. Hell, Captain Hitsugaya apparently didn’t even know. And Renji hasn’t sat down and talked to Kira in ages. Too weird, if he’s honest with himself. He’d tried at first but Kira wasn’t having it and so he figured he’d let him be for a while. Too long. Kira and Momo fighting. About what? What was so bad that they’d wound up shooting spells at each other? Renji’s not the most observant guy, maybe, but he cares about his friends and if they’re in this much trouble he wants to know about it.

 

 

            Shuuhei doesn’t know when Renji gets serious. One minute, they’re laughing and bullshitting post-lieutenants’ meeting and everything’s fine. The next time Shuuhei sees him Renji’s so worked up he won’t even go for a drink.

            “Don’t you think it’s weird?” he keeps saying, like Shuuhei’s underreacting. “What the hell were they fighting about, anyway?”

            “Who knows?” Shuuhei says, not for the first time. He’d thought about it, too, shit, he’s worried for his friends too, but unlike Renji he knows better than to barge in headfirst. “Listen, whatever it was, they obviously don’t want people knowing about it. Just calm down, okay?”

            “How do we know it’s not worse than it looks? Huh? The whole time Ichimaru and Aizen were havin’ their way with those two we let it go ‘cause it wasn’t our business-”

            “The hell does this have to do with _that_?”

            “Something’s going on. Even Matsumoto’s worried about it.”

            “Yeah, well Matsumoto has her private business with Kira and she has her private business with Hinamori, it’s none of ours-”

            “Matsumoto and _Hinamori_?”

            “See? You don’t even know what’s going on with them-”

            “Exactly!” Renji yells. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with them. So don’t tell me to calm down.”

            “Just talk to them. Talk to Kira, shit, but do it another night. Come on. You owe me a drink. _Two_ drinks, actually.”

            Renji looks torn for a second, like he’s still not gonna let it go. But then he sighs, “So I’ll buy you a drink. Shit.”

            Shuuhei tries to put Renji off. He really does. He tries to laugh it off, inventing reasons for Kira and Momo to have fought, absurd hyperboles and ever-kinkier sexual scenarios. He tries reasoning with him. He tries convincing Renji it’s none of their business. But Renji’s like a dog that’s caught a scent and he won’t leave it alone. Shuuhei knows drinking’s a gamble, and it’ll only work if he can get Renji distracted long enough to make him forget the whole thing till morning. He knows he’s fighting a losing battle, but he’s figures he can at least keep Renji from storming off to confront Kira (or, worse, Hinamori) tonight.

            That is, until Matsumoto shows up.

 

 

She tries, for a short time, to focus on work. Despite what her captain thinks, she really _does_ try. But it’s never worked before and it’s not working now; she can’t get Momo’s tear-streaked face out of her head. She can’t stop hearing her voice, thick with tears, choking through a fake smile, “I don’t know what I expected.”

            Matsumoto’s not sure what she expected, either. She’d loved Kira, once. She might even love him still; he’d been a good man and a good friend and she’d shared with him a pain no one else could fathom, having loved Gin and hated herself for it afterwards. But one cannot bear such pain for eternity; one could not let it make them monstrous. And she knows, like no one living or dead could know, how letting loss take the place of love could twist a person entirely. Gin had been her dearest friend, once, her only friend; and yet she loves him no longer, for what he became was nothing like the boy she’d loved. Once upon a time she and Kira had cried and drank and slept together, nursing the wounds Gin had inflicted on both of them, and she’d been sure Kira was not a man to let pain make him cruel.

            She’s the only one, she thinks, that knows Kira’s really dead. Rangiku didn’t need to know him well – but did anyone really know him? Even after Gin had gone, and the knife pulled clean, Kira had not let anyone else into his heart. Maybe Momo. Maybe Renji. Maybe Rangiku, in moments, but maybe never anyone, never truly, never permanently.

            It matters little now.

            He’s dead; maybe he died on the battlefield or maybe he died after that. The brief candle-flicker of the intimacy between them was snuffed out for good the moment Momo turned the corner fleeing the Third Division barracks, her face deathly pale and her reiatsu flaming erratically, wildly. If not for mere chance, Momo might have faced that night alone, like she’d faced too many others, coming back to Kira and coming back again, until she burned herself out entirely. But the short bright flare of clashing kidou had drawn Rangiku there just in time. Momo met her eyes and Rangiku saw the depth of the pain in them. Pain he’d inflicted. Kira is dead to her, and yet he walks; so Rangiku worries and Rangiku ponders and at the end of the day, with no better solution in her mind, Rangiku closes the books and heads off in search of a stiff drink.

            Captain Hitsugaya’s been stolid and silent all day; he’s as worried for Momo as she is. Yet he blames himself for not reaching out to her, and unsure of how to re-forge their bond, he can only wait and watch and fret for her, snapping at anyone who interrupts his reverie. He hasn’t asked Rangiku what she and Momo talked about, and she hasn’t asked him whether he’s gone to see her. They will come together if need be; until then, each of them trusts the other to their own devices. Or, in Rangiku’s case, vices.

            She drinks but doesn’t wallow. It would do her no good to hole up alone and weep over the day’s unsolved problems. What she needs is a short distraction, a little mental relief, before she returns to it again tomorrow. Perhaps none of this can be solved, much less by her interference; so she gives herself over to lightness and boozy laughter in the hope that tomorrow’s Rangiku will do better than she did today.

            “Two drinks, and then we find Kira.”

            She looks up from her own cup to find Renji and Shuuhei scouting for a table. Shuuhei’s rolling his eyes. Renji’s not bothering to keep his voice down.

            “Yoo-hoo!” Rangiku calls. “The party’s over here, boys.”

            Shuuhei’s lips part, but he keeps from even mouthing the curse she can see in the widening of his eyes. A beat. “Hey, Matsumoto,” Shuuhei calls, switching on the bravado and leading Renji in her direction. His voice says ‘great, let’s party’ and his face says ‘no more trouble, not tonight, please.’ Rangiku smiles, motioning for them to take seats.

            “Sup,” Renji greets her.

 

            She tells them nothing of Momo. She will tell them nothing of Momo. The girl has suffered enough already, and though she and Renji are good friends they’re nothing alike, and Rangiku can see that his protectiveness and regard for her doesn’t make him any more subtle. Yet between the three of them sits the black shadow of Kira Izuru, and all that they can guess about what happened, and all that they can’t.

            Renji buys Shuuhei two drinks and watches him intently, waiting for him to finish so he can rise and confront Kira; Shuuhei takes his time sipping slowly at one beer and then another, trying too obviously to keep the conversation light and joking. Rangiku tries not to say anything, she tries, and she pours for herself and Renji and she wishes she could think of anything, anything at all, but the boy not even Gin could break, now seemingly broken beyond repair.

            Shuuhei’s been letting his beer get warm on the table for fifteen minutes when Renji suddenly snags it, finishes it, and stands.

            “This is making me insane,” he says. “We’re gonna talk to him. We’re gonna talk to him right fucking now.”

            Shuuhei stays sitting, the only sober one. He looks at Renji evenly. “That was my drink,” he says.

            “I’ll buy you one tomorrow. Come on if you’re coming.”

            “ _Renji_.”

            Shuuhei stays sitting. Renji starts to leave.

            Rangiku grabs his wrist.

            “It won’t help,” she says.

            “It’ll help _me_ ,” Renji retorts. “Come on, Matsumoto. Shuuhei’ll lie all night just so we don’t _cause trouble_. But you know you wanna know what’s happening with them as bad as I do. They were _dueling_ and shit. In the _barracks_.”

            “They weren’t dueling,” she says. “Sit down.”

            “Nobody knows _what_ the hell they were doing,” Renji starts.

            “I know.” No, no, no. “I know what they were doing.”

            Renji sits. A feral intent cracks his expression into something resembling a smile. He’s not going to let this go, Rangiku realizes. He cares too much.

            Good for him.

            Good for Momo, maybe not. It depends on what she says here. She has to be careful. “Momo went to see him,” she starts. “I’m not sure what about.”

            “Yeah,” he says, and nothing more. Shuuhei’s looking at her in barely-concealed horror, wordlessly begging her not to continue. He hates fighting, especially amongst friends; he wants justice, justice for all of them, justice even for Kira – he doesn’t know, he couldn’t possibly, what his friend has turned into. Is turning into. How low he’s sunk, that he broke Momo’s heart, that he kept her up nights and nights tormenting her, that he walks the halls of the Court like a revenant with no feeling, no pity, no heart-

            Rangiku tries not to tell them. She tries not to say too much. But she’s drunk and it’s killing her and she wishes she were Renji, who gets angry instead of sad, whose hands clench into fists on the table, who hisses through his teeth, “I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill the bastard,” as if he’s not dead already, as if anything would change if Renji tried.

            “She made me promise not to tell,” Rangiku says, and Shuuhei’s looking from her to Renji opening and closing his mouth, trying to make sense of it and trying not to let his own anger show. “Please don’t say anything to her. Please. I know I shouldn’t have told you but I couldn’t let you only hear _his_ side of the story.”

            “This isn’t fair,” Shuuhei protests. “Rangiku, I’m glad you told us, but Momo-”

            “We’re going right. Fucking now.” Renji’s anger builds and builds, his reiatsu like heat waves rippling out and up. He stands. His hand is curled over Zabimaru.

            “Don’t.” Shuuhei’s standing, now, too. “I swear to God, Renji, let’s just-”

            But he’s striding off already, and Shuuhei can only follow him, and Rangiku can only watch them go.

 

 

            Kira opens the door looking like he always does, both annoyed and gloomy at once. Renji takes advantage of Shuuhei’s distraction to elbow him aside and get a good grab at Kira; Shuuhei’s not quick enough to stop him. He hauls the skinny bastard up on his toes so he knows Renji’s serious.

            “Where the _fuck_ do you get off,” he says. Says, not yells. He’s not causing a scene.

            “Renji, this isn’t the fucking time,” Shuuhei hisses, like both their captains are gonna turn the corner any second. “ _We’re_ gonna be the ones in trouble. It’s not our business-”

            “The hell it isn’t!” He doesn’t let Kira go, but he turns and knocks his head into Shuuhei’s. “Traitor. Whose side are you even on?”

            “I’m not on anybody’s side,” Shuuhei protests. “I’m on the side of _reason_ and-”

            “What’s this about,” Kira says flatly. He’s letting Renji take most of his weight, passive and unimpressed. It makes Renji’s blood boil.

            “We heard about you and Momo,” Renji says, rounding on him again. “You fucking prick.”

            “We heard that you had an argument,” Shuuhei butts in. “Just that you guys had fought, and-”    

            “Did you make her cry?” Renji demands.

            Kira looks at him evenly. “Yes,” he says.

            Renji punches him. Kira takes the blow like he expected it, which, obviously, he did.

            “Why?” Renji demands.

            “Because I’m a fucking prick,” Kira says.

            Shuuhei catches Renji’s arm before he can swing again. Renji headbutts Kira in the face instead.

            “For fuck’s sake!” Shuuhei wrenches Renji back from the doorway. “Just, fuck, Renji, let him explain!”

            “There’s nothing to explain,” Kira says. His nose is bleeding. He doesn’t do anything about it. He looks bored. “What are you both here for, exactly?”

            Shuuhei’s managed to get between Renji and Kira. “We just heard-” He blocks Renji as he tries to duck around him. One more swing. One more really good punch to the head, maybe a kick. Knock some sense into him. “We just wanted to talk to you- Get off, Renji, duking it out’s not gonna solve anything-”

            “Fucking- talk about it like it didn’t even matter- fucking admit you made her cry with a straight – fucking – face –” Shuuhei’s got him in a tight hold, now dragging him back from the doorway where Kira stands, still unfazed, still looking bored. Bastard. He wriggles free, elbows Shuuhei for extra distance, hits Kira at a half-sprint. Kira lets Renji tackle him, straddle him, punch him twice before Shuuhei has Renji in a headlock.

            “This isn’t the fucking Academy!” Shuuhei somehow has time to cast a binding spell with his free hand, and then Renji’s on the floor with his arms behind his back. “This isn’t Academy and it isn’t the fucking Eleventh. Get yourself under control.”

            “Fuck you,” Renji spits. “You’re telling me you’re okay with this? You’re okay with him acting like-”

            “I didn’t say I was okay with it!” Renji scrabbles his feet under him and forces himself up. Shuuhei’s glaring at both of them. “I don’t know what happened between you and Hinamori, Kira, but Renji’s right. You’re being a fucking prick. What’s gotten into you?”

            “I didn’t disagree with him.” Kira’s sitting up. His face is busted. But it doesn’t seem like he’s learning his lesson.

            “If you agree than why are you still acting like you couldn’t give a shit?”

            “It’s none of your business.” Kira picks himself up off the floor slowly. “None of it concerns you.”

            “The hell it doesn’t,” Renji spits. “She’s our friend. You treated her like shit.”

            “We don’t know what happened,” Shuuhei interrupts, but he’s pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s barely holding in his temper.

            “We don’t have to guess,” Renji says. “Hinamori’s never got a mean word for anybody, while _you_ -”

            “Hinamori’s our friend,” Shuuhei says loudly. “But you’re our friend, too, Kira. We’re just worried-”

            “ _Worried_ about me, isn’t that nice,” Kira says.

            Renji bursts the binding on his arms and launches himself at Kira, but Shuuhei’s too quick.

            “What’s your problem?” he snarls over Shuuhei’s shoulder, struggling to get around him. “Listen, asshole, nobody gives a shit if you’re sad-”

            Kira barks out a laugh. “Sad?”

            “Or whatever the fuck!” Renji backs off Shuuhei for a second, paces. “You’ve got a stick up your ass ‘cause you’re dead. Big fucking deal. You don’t get to take out your shit on other people. Especially Hinamori.” Something cracks in Kira’s expression. Renji sinks his teeth in. “She didn’t deserve whatever you did, and you _know_ that-”

            Renji feints to the left and Shuuhei doesn’t take it, bounces Renji back easily with a shove to his chest. “You know you fucked up,” Renji goes on, still fuming, still sniffing for a way to get back in at him again. “You’re really gonna take shit out on Momo? Don’t you think enough people have tried to fuck with her already?”

            “Listen,” Shuuhei says, shifting his weight in rhythm with Renji’s pacing, like he’s Kira’s bodyguard. Shitty bodyguard. Renji keeps his eyes on Kira’s bloodied face. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Whatever happened isn’t getting solved by you beating the shit out of him. Renji.” Shuuhei grabs his bicep and gets right in his face.

            Renji’s ready to stare him down for the chance to get one more swing in. ‘Not getting us anywhere’, whatever. He owes Kira another black eye at least.

            “Lieutenants.” Captain Otoribashi. Kira wipes blood from his face. Renji turns.

            “Captain.” Shuuhei bows. Renji does, too.

            “Quite a torrid week you’ve had, Kira,” Captain Otoribashi says.

            “We were talking,” Kira says quickly, before his captain can say anything else. His voice is hoarse. “We were just talking.”

            “Looks like a ‘disagreement’, at least,” he says. He sighs, leans slightly against the doorframe. “Please, continue your conversation. Don’t let me interrupt.”

            “We’re finished,” Shuuhei says evenly. “Sir.”

            “Abarai?”

            Renji clenches his fists. His palms itch. “I’ve got nothing to say to your lieutenant. Sir.”

            “Very well.”

            “Please excuse us,” Shuuhei says. He starts out of the room, glances over his shoulder like Renji’s gonna try something stupid.

            Renji bows as he passes Captain Otoribashi, but he can’t resist a last look back at Kira. At least Renji messed up his face.

            As they leave, he just catches their voices –

            “Izuru, I’m sorry-”

            “Don’t.”

 

 

            Kira looks at him with one eye already swelling shut, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. For a moment, the tension in the room is a bright, high note, a plucked string singing. Rose lets Kira break it, bowing abruptly in apology.

            “That was rude, Captain, I’m sorry,” he says, straightening quickly before the blood can drip from his face onto the floor. “I have no excuse for my behavior.”

            “No one’s in trouble,” Rose sighs. He doesn’t come inside. Let his lieutenant keep his dignity. “I can call them back for another round, if you like.”

            “No, sir.”

            “Izuru.” Perhaps it’s cruel to insist on the intimacy of his first name. It seems any intimacy at all is painful to him right now. Yet Rose is sure Kira understands his meaning. “It’s late. I won’t insist you tell me anything. But whatever’s happened, you don’t need to weather it alone.” Kira doesn’t quite meet his eyes. Rose has certainly seen him in worse shape physically, but he has never seen such pain in his face. “It hurts me to see you this way,” he continues, softly. “Please. If there is _anything_ …”

            “I didn’t ask for this,” Kira says suddenly, unexpectedly. He stops himself short, like he too is surprised by his words. A silence stretches, and Rose forces himself not to fill it. “I didn’t ask to be brought back,” he continues, finally. “I didn’t want to be. I never wanted.” He gestures helplessly, a small raise of one thin hand. “This. I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean for any of this…”

            “It’s not your fault,” Rose says.

            The wrong thing to say, and he knows it instantly by the stormcloud Kira’s reiatsu becomes. He watches his lieutenant struggle wordlessly to hold his composure. Then, “It is. It is my fault. All of this is my fault, and mine alone. From the very beginning.”

            “Captain Kurotsuchi,” Rose begins, and Kira cuts him off again.

            “You, too, were brought back.” As if Rose doesn’t remember. As if he doesn’t remember the pain, his death, his agonizing resurrection. It was like Hollowification only in that it was hell. And yet he survived it. And yet here they both are. “You have faced pain and death just as I have, and you never let it make you-” Here he gestures, again, weakly, as though no words can express the depth of his sorrow. Rose does not find his pain beautiful. Not anymore. To see Kira wounded but healing, scarred but unbroken, after the usurper Ichimaru had slithered away – that was something else. This pain inspires Rose only to silence.

            “It’s late,” Kira says, returning Rose’s words to him. “I apologize for the disturbance.”

            “You have not disturbed me,” Rose says. “I admire your will to protect others from yourself, Izuru, but remember that you are not the only one who was made a monster against your will.”

            Kira says nothing, his eyes downcast. But he hears him. Of that, at least, Rose is sure.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to the few, precious people who read (much less commented) on this work. we're in this (rarepair/kira stan hell) together amirite

“Heyyy. Kira. Buddy.” Captain Hirako’s voice comes clearly into Momo’s ears, startling her awake. She sits up, confused for a moment whether she’s dreaming. She casts about the room, sees no one, and her captain speaks again before she even has time to reach out her senses to feel for the presence of an intruder. “Pal,” he says. His voice comes from just outside her door. “How are ya.”

            “Captain Hirako,” Kira says.

            Her blood runs cold.

            “Aw, come on,” Hirako drawls. “None of that. We’re friends, aren’t we, Kira?” Kira doesn’t respond. “Rose’s got a soft spot for you,” he adds, as if Kira doesn’t know it. “And hey, any friend of Rose’s is a friend of mine.” He steps closer, so that the pulse of his reiatsu almost overlaps with Kira’s. Close enough to put an arm around his shoulders, which is what Momo pictures them doing – just feet away from her, just barely out of her sight. Surely they know she’s listening. So she should step out and speak to them both, shouldn’t she?

            Should she?

            “So Kira. It’s rare that we in the Fifth get the pleasure of your company so late at night.” Hirako speaks like he knows she’s listening. But he always speaks like that. His voice is the same, whether to an audience of hundreds or only of one; it’s one of the things she admires about him, trusts about him. Whether he was truly alone with Kira or not, he’d surely speak just the same. So it’s all right if she just waits. Just listens. “In fact,” he goes on, “it’s so rare that I just gotta ask. Buddy. What the fuck do you think you’re doing here in my hallway. In my division. Outside my lieutenant’s door.”

            “I came to speak with Hinamori.”

            “Ha!” The bark of his laughter is followed by a slap, palm-to-back. His arm was around Kira’s shoulders, then. She can see them as if they stand in the room with her, Kira gaunt and humorless, Captain Hirako showing his teeth. She rises from bed. She should step out. “That’s funny,” Hirako says. “Funny. I see why Rose is so quick to defend you.” She should step out. She’ll say, ‘Captain, he came to see me and that’s all that matters. I wanted him to come. I just couldn’t…’ Couldn’t and can’t. Won’t. “She invited you, huh? She asked you here?”

            “No,” says Kira, after a moment.

            “Funny,” says her captain. “Hilarious. Just came around for another late-night chat, huh?”

            No. No, he shouldn’t have known. He wasn’t supposed to know. How much does he-? How stupid was she, to think she could keep this private after the scene she caused? Shame burns hot in her chest. She crosses the room. She’ll end this now. She’ll end it.

            “I know I fucked up,” Kira says. “I know what I did was wrong. But it’s for me to repair.”

            She freezes where she is, her hand on the door. She hears Captain Hirako scoff.

            “You don’t deserve the chance,” he says. “You get up to whatever sick shit you like while Rose is babysitting you. But you’re not on your turf right now, kiddo. You’re on mine. My division. My fuckin’ _hallway_.” There’s a pause. Kira stands his ground. “When I say march, lieutenant, you fuckin’ _march_. _Out_ ,” he says, and now there’s no smile at all in his voice.

            Still Kira stays unmoving for a moment more before he says, as if to himself, “I’ll come another day.”

            Kira goes. Her captain stays.

            “Presumptuous fuckin’ asshole. ‘Come another day’. Tch. See if I let you through the front door next time. Cheeky little bastard.” Hirako mumbles to himself for a moment, all the protective elder brother, probably glaring daggers at Kira’s back. Then, “Hey Momo,” he calls, raising his voice just enough to give her an easy excuse to respond or not to. He is kinder than he should be. Kinder, maybe, than she deserves. “Spooky finally found the exit. He gives you any more hassle, you just say the word, alright?”

            It’s a struggle to find her voice. “Thank you,” she says, when finally she does. “You didn’t have to do that.”

            “The hell I didn’t,” he responds. “Slinkin’ around in the middle of the night. Guy’s a menace.”

            “He’s my friend,” she says, and her voice dies to a whisper. “I should have defended him.” Yet here she still is, behind her door, unable to face even the man who stood up for her. Rightly or not, she still can’t say.

            “Your friend’s a creep,” he says.

            “He’s not.”

            “Hey, I’m friends with some real creeps myself. You can’t get by without a couple creeps on your side. But it was a dick move to come crawling back here when he could’ve faced you by light of day like a fuckin’ man. If he’s sorry, let him grovel a little.”

            “Captain,” she protests.

            He chuckles. “Fine, fine. Just let me know if he needs any more roughing up, all right?”

            “‘More’?”

            There’s a pause, and in it she hears things she does not care to hear. Who-? Not Hirako – he spoke like she’d known, like word was traveling as quickly to her as it was to him. ‘Roughed him up’ – only Renji. He’s the only one of her friends who’d go in swinging from the start. It tires her. It all tires her. Why is it that no matter how hard she tries to stand on her own, others step in to try and fight her battles for her? Is she really so fragile?

            ‘Am I really so fragile,’ she thinks to herself in disgust, for here she still stands, cowering in her room like Kira had when it was her paying him a late-night visit. Passive. Afraid.

            “I can look after myself, Captain,” she manages, trying to make her voice strong. “Please let me deal with him next time.”

            “You got it.” He sounds glad to leave her to it. Maybe he doesn’t doubt her, but is only trying to save face after Rose stepped in with Kira. She’s heard, at least, rumors of why neither of them has been formally disciplined for their skirmish. Maybe her captain just didn’t want to seem like he didn’t care for her. Maybe he’d wanted to avoid another escalation. Maybe maybe. Her own thoughts sound whiny, hand-wringing. She takes a deep breath.

            Captain Hirako has already begun to saunter off when she opens her door.

            “Captain.”

            He turns to face her casually, as if the past several minutes are already forgotten. “Yeah?”

            “Thank you.”

            “’Course,” he says, shrugging one shoulder.

            “Good night,” she says, and even to her own ears it sounds natural. A lopsided smile pulls at her captain’s face, and at last there is warmth there.

            “’Night,” he says, and strides away easy.

            She closes her door.

            She lays herself down.

            Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be easier.

 

 

Tomorrow, Matsumoto finds her. Midmorning, she walks in, looking tired, and asks to speak to her privately; when the door’s locked she confesses like her own heart’s broken that she spilled Momo’s secret to Renji and Shuuhei. Momo almost laughs, the sad dark absurdity of it all cracking again into her tired brain.

            “Don’t,” she says, to herself as much as to Matsumoto. “Please don’t apologize. After everything that happened – after how I behaved, how can I expect people wouldn’t talk about it? Renji and Shuuhei would have found out from someone.”

            “It’s not your fault if people talk,” Matsumoto says, her voice suddenly hard. “It’s the fault of whoever’s doing the talking. Harmless gossip is one thing, but it was a private affair. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

            “I’m the Vice-Captain of my Division,” Momo says. “I set a poor example in front of – there must have been a dozen officers outside his quarters when I left.”

            “Please let me apologize,” Matsumoto says, her voice soft again.

            That’s right. That’s right, isn’t it.

            “I forgive you,” Momo says.

            Matsumoto embraces her.

 

 

That night she sits up well past the hour when she should sleep. It doesn’t matter whether she lays down or not. Sleeping won’t make her heart less weary. Only resolving this will let her sleep again. There’s nothing to do, nothing at all, nothing and nothing. The night is quiet. Fallow. No disturbances in the realms of the living or the dead, nor anything in between. As if the chaos of the past few years rose and burned to ashes all at once. No fuel left for the faintest flame. Sterile black earth awaiting nothing, nothing at all, nothing and nothing.

            Kira will come, surely, again tonight. He is coming. So what can she do but wait to receive him? Has she done much else, lately, than react and absorb and be passive? Isn’t she still the trembling dainty blossom Aizen plucked? A girl, in the end, and not a woman?

            She waits. She lets her heart blaze and her mind race in circles.

            The night is quiet.

            Finally bored of her own thoughts, but still too tense to distract herself elsewhere, Momo reaches out her senses and finds Kira’s reiatsu, a black blur among the swarm of other souls. She can hold his presence and five dozen others in her mind if she focuses, roving pinpoints at varying distances. And the night is quiet, and there is nothing – and with nowhere better to fix, her senses branch out, touch lightly on each soul she can name, slowly, delicately, a scattered web of pulses. She fills her head with them. And this is not her limit. Curiously, idly, she adds more to the shimmering net in her mind, wondering when she last counted, wondering if she’s improved. Wondering not at all whether Kira intends to visit her or not, until finally his presence has begun to tug at her, roving closer, demanding her attention.

            Far off, he’s dull, a resonance that aches in her jaw like drumming her fingernails on a chopstick held in her teeth. The stars come out as he approaches: now a sourness in the back of her throat, now the taste of biting the inside of her cheek.

            It would have to be like this. They set themselves up this way. Her sitting, waiting, his form coming into clarity with each step he takes, down halls she knows like the veins in her own body, every turn sharpening his edges until she can almost see him, until she can taste the unpleasant tang like old blood, the violation that is now the core of him.

            It should be an icy hand gripping her heart. His presence should harrow her. Even the moon obliges them: that night when Kira stands outside her door at last, a sickle hangs over them in the sky.

            And yet even with the cold resonance of his reiatsu looming, even with nothing to steal her attention away, she cannot rise and tremble like she should. Like she thought she might, when she’d been thinking of what she’d do when he came; when trying to keep the trouble of him from her own mind was all she could think about. And now he is here, or maybe she is dreaming – she rises, slowly, and her heart finally catches up. Kira Izuru, standing outside her door. And he’s dead, and she can feel him, seething dissonant particles tangled in a black mass of rot, he waits, he doesn’t knock, he must assume she’s on her away to the door already or trembling in fear; he must have some final words for her.

            She crosses the room slowly. Her heart has caught up but that’s all of her that will move; the rest feels leaden, even bored. She feels bored by this. She cannot cry over this again. She thought she was done crying, and wasn’t; she thought she’d cry all night again and here she is, standing opposite him, a thin paneled door and an arm’s breadth between them. She waits for him to knock, or speak. He can do that much, if he really wants to see her.

            He knocks.

            She opens the door.

            And his eyes are still blue; and his straw-yellow hair hangs in front of his tired pale face.

            “Izuru,” she says.

            “Hinamori,” he says. And then. “Momo,” he says, softly, like her name hurts his throat; but he says it anyway.

            “Come in,” she says.

            They sit.

            “I’ve come to apologize,” he says.

            “I know.”

            “I had no right to treat you the way I did.” He looks at his knees and not at her. “I’m sorry.”

            “I forgive you,” she says.

            He meets her eyes, then. His lips half-parted, like he meant to keep apologizing. Like he means to apologize forever.

            “I see,” he says at last. “I – thank you.”

            And perhaps Momo should apologize, too. But then that might be it – I’m sorry and I’m sorry, and nothing more.

            “Do you think we’ll ever be friends again?” she asks instead.

            He’s quiet. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

            “Would you let me visit you anyway?”

            Like she’s drawn her sword. His right arm tenses, makes a fist. “Why?” he says. Again that voice – like he’d cry if he could. Like he wants to.

            “I miss you.”

            “I’m not coming back,” he says. “I can’t come back.”

            “Have you tried?”

            He only looks at her. She wishes she could take it back but she can’t, she can’t, she can only go forward.

            “Could you keep trying?”

            He only looks at her.

            “Could I help you? Is there anything – anything, Izuru, that I can do that wouldn’t hurt you?”

            “Hurt me?” he says at last. “Do you think you’re hurting me?”

            “Aren’t I?”

            “No.”

            “Can you be hurt? Do you feel pain?”

            He looks down. His prosthetic unclenches its fist and turns, palm up. “I feel something like it,” he says. “Sometimes.”

            She reaches her own hand out, slowly. He lets her touch the smooth cool surface of it, the palm and its fingers.

            “Does it hurt when I touch you?”

            He hesitates. “No,” he says, but he doesn’t sound sure.

            So she draws her hand away.

            But he follows her motion, his other hand catching hers. It’s warm. It almost shocks her. His skin is warm like hers.

            “This is better,” he says. “This is fine. You’re not hurting me.” He holds her hand gently, loosely, so that she could pull away without any effort at all. But she doesn’t. She wouldn’t, now, even if she wanted to. “You can visit me,” he says. “You can come anytime. You’re not hurting me, Hinamori.”

            “Then why drive me away?”

            “Because I am not your Kira Izuru. I am not the man I was. I’m a thing. A moving body. I can never be what I was to you.”

            “That’s not true.”

            “It is.”

            “The Kira I knew would want to save me pain. He might even be cruel, if he thought he was sparing me something worse.”

            “That isn’t what I meant. You’re wasting your time waiting for me to come back to myself. Waiting for me to wake up and realize I still love you and all will be right again. Frankly it’s a waste of my time as much as it is of yours. I’m not trying to protect you.”

            She sees, too, that he means it. Or thinks he does. The difference is meaningless.

            “What does it matter?” she asks. “You could have let me waste your time and saved us both the gossip that’s been going around.”

            “I don’t care what people think or say about me. Gossip doesn’t interest me.”

            “Is this a waste of your time, then, too?” she asks. “Why did you come to apologize if you don’t care what anyone thinks of you?”

            “I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. It was unnecessary. You didn’t deserve it.”

            “Do I deserve this?”

            He opens and then closes his mouth, looking – lost. Taken aback. “I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t seem to know for what. “I’m not trying to be – this is what I meant. This is just- the way that I am, now. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

            “No,” she says. It does hurt. Not for her own sake, but for his numb confusion, like a robot outside its parameters. “It’s all right. I just have to get used to it. We haven’t talked in so long,” she says. “This must be our first real conversation in forever.”

            “Because it’s pointless,” he says, something like frustration in the furrow of his brow. “What do we have to talk about in private?”

            “This. Us. I want to see you. I know you feel it’s pointless, but unless you have something better to be doing right now…”

            “No.”

            “Then let me just – let me sleep at your place sometimes. You don’t have to talk to me. You can pretend to ignore me if you want to.”

            He looks at her carefully, as if trying to weigh his words. “Isn’t it a little sick?” he says finally. “To hold on to something just because it resembles your old lover?”

            But she is stronger than this. Stronger than his bland disapproval, his idle observation.

            “Why do you care?” she says. “Do you pity me?”

            “No,” he says. “It just seems wrong somehow. There’s no benefit. To either of us.”

            “That’s for me to decide.”

            His eyes are so clear. His hand moves in hers, as if he’d forgotten she still held it.

            “Let me visit you,” she says. “I won’t be a bother.”

            “All right,” he says. “If you must.”

 

 

And maybe she only does it to prove to herself that she can. That it doesn’t matter, or that it still matters enough. And maybe she does it to show Matsumoto, and Renji, and Toushirou, and Kira’s captain and her own, and everyone else who has concerned themselves with it that it’s all right, that she and Kira and fine, that they can all stop talking about it. That it’s peace-time, that no intrigues more interesting than lovers’ quarrels are taking place in Soul Society. Maybe she’s sick, deluded, cradling the cold corpse of her old love as if it still lives.

            But it doesn’t hurt, when he opens the door to her, when he stands aside without a word. Whether it’s pointless or a performance, she’ll find out later. Or never. If nothing else it doesn’t hurt, when Kira sits with his back to her and doesn’t pretend to be busy, and she spreads out his futon and wraps himself in a blanket that smells more like her than like him.

            He says nothing. She says goodnight.

            “Goodnight,” he says, and for a while she doesn’t sleep.

 

            When she wakes, the room is dark. He’s awake, as he always is, and he stands at the door. His stance is solid. Wabisuke broods against his hip. He doesn’t move, even when she turns over, even when she keeps watching him. He knows she’s awake, or he doesn’t. It matters little.

            He’d cut down anything that came through that door. He’d cut down anything. Momo can’t tell whether it’s a comforting thought. She watches him, and he doesn’t move. She falls asleep after a time, and she has no dreams. 


End file.
